The sheriff’s companion laughed.  “I was going to feed him,” explained the sheriff.

“I know what I’d feed him,” growled his companion.

“What for?  He’s faithful to his boss—­and that’s something.”

The other grunted and they passed up the street.  Groups of men waylaid them asking questions.  As they drifted from one group to another, the friend remarked that his companion seemed to be saying little.  The stout sheriff smiled.  He was listening.

Chance, aware that something was wrong, fretted around the door of Sundown’s temporary habitation.  Finally he threw himself down, nose on outstretched paws, and gazed at the lights and the men across the way.  Later, when the town had become dark and silent, the dog rose, shook himself, and padded down the highway taking the trail for the Concho.  He knew that his master’s disappearance had not been voluntary.  He also knew that his own appearance alone at the Concho would be evidence that something had gone wrong.

Once well outside the town, Chance settled to a long, steady stride that ate into the miles.  At the water-hole he leaped the closed gate and drank.  Again upon the road he swung along across the starlit mesas, taking the hills at a trot and pausing on each rise to rest and sniff the midnight air.  Then down the slopes he raced, and out across the levels, the great bunching muscles of his flanks and shoulders working tirelessly.  As dawn shimmered across the ford he trotted down the mud-bank and waded into the stream, where he stood shoulder-deep and lapped the cool water.

Corliss, early afoot, found him curled at the front door of the ranch-house.  Chance braced himself on his fore legs and yawned.  Then stretching he rose and, frisking about Corliss, tried to make himself understood.  Corliss glanced toward the corral, half expecting to see Sundown’s horse.  Then he stepped to the men’s quarters.  He greeted Wingle, asking him if Sundown had returned.

“No.  Thought he went east.”

“Chance came back, alone.”

And Corliss and the cook eyed each other simultaneously and nodded.

“Loring,” said Wingle.

“Guess you’re right, Hi.”

“Sheriff must ‘a’ been out of town and got back just in time to meet up with Sundown,” suggested Wingle.  And he seized a scoop and dug into the flour barrel.

An hour later the buckboard stood at the ranch gate.  Bud Shoop, crooning a range-ditty that has not as yet disgraced an anthology, stood flicking the rear wheel with his whip:—­

  “Oh, that biscuit-shooter on the Santa Fe,
    —­Hot coffee, ham-and-eggs, huckleberry pies,—­
  Got every lonely puncher that went down that way
    With her yella-bird hair and them big blue eyes . . .

  “For a two-bit feed and a two-bit smile . . .”

The song was interrupted by the appearance of Corliss, who swung to the seat and took the reins.